


We All Know What We've Done

by villainne



Series: We Must Be Killers [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Agent May cameo, Body Shots, Bruce Banner is a fucking badass, Bruce is not the Hulk, F/M, Gen, I have a lot of feelings about Natasha, Natasha has a lot of feelings, Post-Avengers (2012), Stark Tower is a dorm, i don't actually know how the Hulk works oh well, one hundred percent headcanon, rated F for Feelings, this is just the beginning, un beta'd SORRY, whatever Marvel I do what I want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-20
Updated: 2014-06-23
Packaged: 2018-01-24 23:24:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1620746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/villainne/pseuds/villainne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>What breaks her heart, though, is the way she thinks that she and Dr. Banner are the same.</em> </p><p>Slow-build Natasha/Bruce, from Natasha's POV. Post-Avengers, pre-all the other movies since then.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prelude: The Way I Tend to Be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _There are a thousand things Natasha should be haunted by._
> 
>  
> 
> Natasha's reflections on the helicarrier fight, plotless context for the rest of the fic.

There are a thousand things Natasha should be haunted by. That’s just the kind of life she’s had. And she is; a decent spy never forgets anything. But it had been a long time since a single moment caught in her mind like Banner's face, just before he disappeared completely on the helicarrier. Banner shows pretty much everything on his face—that had been obvious from the moment she met him. She’d never expected to see so much, though.

Natasha is afraid of a lot of things. Being afraid of things is how you stay alive. She's afraid that one day her past will get in the way of her work to make up for it. She's afraid that one day she'll encounter the one bad guy who skips the speech and shoots for the head. She's afraid that the very few people in the world she's allowed herself to love will leave her sooner or later. She's afraid of the Hulk. Natasha might run with superheroes and a dude in a robot suit, but she's just a person with a very specific skill set. She is very, very good at what she does, and the things she does have almost no impact on something like the Hulk. Her Bite and her knives don't damage him; he can't be seduced or misled. Next to the Hulk she feels helpless, and there is nothing that scares Natasha more than being helpless.

What breaks her heart, though, is the way she thinks that she and Dr. Banner are the same. She understands the cognitive dissonance of a person who has done terrible things. Banner is a kind man, she believes, but he contains a natural disaster. The winds shift, and people die. Natasha does not allow herself to make mistakes, but it was some kind of accident that as a child she was trained by the wrong people, aimed like a gun in the wrong direction. Being horrified by the things she’s done changes nothing; all she can hope for is to know that she’s fighting for good. She thinks maybe Banner feels the same way. She thinks what keeps her at SHIELD might be the same kind of impulse that sent Banner to the slums of Calcutta, and it makes her nauseous to have been the one to take him away from the only thing he'd found that felt like redemption.

So when Banner rolled into the Battle of New York on that ridiculous, spluttery little motorbike, Natasha felt like singing. When he apologized to her, he was so sheepish and earnest, and then, just like that, he was walking towards an alien spaceship monster. A scientist wearing borrowed clothes, headed straight for absolute destruction. The secret to his year long streak was the saddest thing Natasha had ever heard, but the absolute confidence in him when he said, “I’m always angry,” and turned green and burst out of his clothes and punched a fucking alien spaceship in the nose was like a shot of adrenaline to her own heart.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Do you prefer lace or silk, Agent Romanov?”

When Banner returns to himself, they go out for shawarma. The place didn’t escape the Chitauri, by any means, but everyone’s alive, and they still had food, and when the owner saw Steve in his uniform she waved them in enthusiastically and told them anything they wanted was on the house. Banner orders like a pro—apparently he’s had it in several countries. Stark watches, says, “That, six of that, please.” They’re the only ones in there, and the employees are trying to unobtrusively clean up the wreckage while they eat. The boys are almost too tired to chew, though Stark has a distinct alertness around the eyes that Natasha recognizes as absolute panic, even if his attitude is mostly normal. Steve is actually barely moving, on her left. She thinks he falls asleep a couple times. Thor appears to be in a fugue state—although his behavior isn’t appreciably different than the rest of them, she thinks silent brooding is most out of character for him and Stark, and she supposes they have as much to be traumatized about as Clint does.

She watches Clint, with one eye on Banner, just past him. Clint is leaning back in his chair, his meal in his lap, with one leg up behind her. He doesn’t look at any of them, but his calf rests against her thigh. Banner just eats, though he chuckles to himself at one point about some private joke. Thor looks up at that, no one comments on it.

Clint isn’t the type to reveal himself in front of other people. She’d skipped Fury’s guilt trip to be there when he woke up, but Coulson’s loss hit both of them harder than any of the others. Stark had known him, too, but Natasha and Clint had been working with him for years. She knows, also, the kinds of panic and grief and helplessness he’ll be feeling after Loki’s mindfuck. She doesn’t want him to go to SHIELD’s debriefing. She doesn’t want him to have to submit himself to their scrutiny, their suspicion, their pity. If he could have had the chance to put an arrow through Loki’s eye, she thinks that might have been the best thing for him. It’s already been decided that Thor will lock up both Loki and the Tesseract and take them both back to Asgard, to be dealt with however they deal with things like that on Asgard. Loki is in some kind of magical restraints deep in the basement of Stark Tower even now—SHIELD certainly would have had more effective containment facilities, but none of them are feeling entirely comfortable with SHIELD’s level of autonomy after the whole nuclear-missile-over-New-York debacle.

After they see Thor off, she’s going to take Clint on a road trip, she decides right there, finally picking up her shawarma. And tonight they’re all going to get drunk, whether the boys like it or not. Okay, well, Steve can’t get drunk with his magic metabolism. But he can try, dammit.

So when it looks like everyone’s finished eating, she wipes her hands on a napkin, clears her throat, places her right hand on Clint’s knee. “Gentlemen,” she begins. “I’d like to propose that we all get some sleep, then reconvene in the Stark Tower penthouse around 2100 hours.”

Steve rotates his head, without raising it from where it’s resting on his hand, to raise an eyebrow at her. “To debrief? Shouldn’t we go to SHIELD for that?”

She smirks a little. “Call it debriefing if you want. My plan was just to empty Stark's bar before he starts reconstruction.”

Stark looks up at that. “Well, I suppose I should resent your readiness to invite a bunch of near-strangers with super-metabolisms to help themselves to my liquor, but actually I’m in favor of this plan. There’s extra beds in the Tower, too, for those of you who don’t have homes.”

Banner gives him a dry look, and Thor claps a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you for your hospitality, my friend. Every successful battle ought to be celebrated with drink and companionship.”

Natasha studies Clint, who hasn’t responded. Eventually he meets her gaze, nods. She’ll tell him about the road trip later.

-

So they all stagger back to Stark Tower together, Natasha in the lead to help dodge reporters. She steals an abandoned jacket from the ground to try to cover some of Steve’s uniform (good thing he’s not much for stealth, that outfit is appalling) and they take a couple back alley detours, and the general confusion helps. 

In the elevator, Stark hits the buttons for the penthouse and the floor just below it. “I think there’s plenty of rooms made up, they all even have showers, I—oh. You guys probably want to change clothes, huh.”

Steve grimaces. “I mean, I don’t want to get Chitauri blood and soot on your sheets--”

“Ugh, say no more. Well, Bruce and Clint will definitely fit in my clothes, and some of Pepper’s stuff is here, but these behemoths, I don’t know—”

“Do not trouble yourself, friend. Asgardians do not require clothes simply for sleeping.”

Steve had opened his mouth to respond to that, closes it and flushes at that statement from Thor. “Uh, well. Just—if you have a pair of shorts or something, Tony, I’d really appreciate it—”

“Yes, yes, fine, all of you come with me, I’m sure we can find something, I am absurdly wealthy and own more clothes than I ever wear, really...” Stark keeps rambling as he gets off the elevator and heads for the master bedroom. They all follow, awkwardly (except Natasha, Natasha is never awkward), past the crater in the floor and the whistling of the wind through the hole where a gorgeous picture window used to be.

Stark yanks open a drawer in a very sleek, modern dresser and basically gathers the entire contents into his arms and dumps them onto the huge bed for the boys to sort through. Then he turns to Natasha and smirks at her before opening a second drawer. “Hmmm, let’s see, what do we have here. Do you prefer lace or silk, Agent Romanov?”

“Oh, silk, please, Tony. I like something I can move in.”

Stark looks up at her with a shocked and delighted expression on his face, before grinning and tossing her a surprisingly modest Dolce & Gabbana camisole and shorts set. “You probably mean in case you need to murder someone in your sleep, though, huh.” Thor (oblivious) and Clint (who’s heard it all) ignore this exchange, but Banner and Steve are staring at her as well. She gives them her most impassive half-smile.

“All right you leeches, if you take the elevator down one floor there’s a common kitchen and a bunch of bedrooms. Make yourselves at home, I don’t want to hear from any of you until I’ve slept for at least 45 minutes.” Stark starts shooing them away from the bed, and they all file out with their bundles of pajamas.

They’re silent on the elevator, and each claim a bedroom on the next floor (damage limited to some shattered windows and scorch marks) without discussion. Clint doesn’t even look at her when she follows him into the last room on the hall—the others took the first empty rooms they got to and she doesn’t think any of them notice. “Do you want the shower first?” She asks him, when the door is closed. There is an ensuite, as promised. Tony Stark doesn’t skimp on hospitality for his guests. “No, go ahead. I’ll just—” Clint doesn’t finish his sentence, just sits down in an armchair. Natasha considers him for a moment, before unzipping her boots and heading for the bathroom.

She drops all her clothes on the floor, but places her holsters and (now empty) guns on the counter by the sink. She finds expensive shampoo, conditioner, and body wash already in the shower, turns the water as hot as it will go, and examines her damage in the mirror before it steams up. Most of the bruising she can see is from the Hulk, actually. She’s pretty sure, anyway. She definitely has a couple broken ribs, and it’s probably a miracle her left arm wasn’t broken, though it’s quite a dark purple over most of her bicep. Assorted other bruises and abrasions basically everywhere.

Natasha finally climbs into the shower, sighing as the hot water hits her shoulders. She stands still, letting it soak through her hair and ease her aches for a few minutes before she efficiently lathers up. She lets the conditioner sit in her hair for exactly sixty seconds before rinsing, then dries off with the softest, thickest towel she’s ever seen outside of a hotel and donning her expensive, borrowed pajamas.

When she steps out, Clint is exactly where she left him, staring at the opposite wall. She wraps her hair in the towel, then goes to him and gently tugs him to a standing position. She herds him into the bathroom, and stands in the doorway with an eyebrow raised until he sighs. “Yeah, okay Nat, I can take it from here,” and he obediently starts unzipping the vest, unbuckling holsters.

“If you’re not out in thirty minutes, I’m coming in for you,” she warns him before shutting the door. With the room to herself, she does a bit of stretching until she hears the water come on again. Natasha has been on rough missions with Clint before, seen him deal with rescues gone south, lost teammates—most worst case scenarios, short of being mind-controlled by an alien god bent on world domination. She knows he’ll come through it, doesn’t expect him to do anything rash in the meantime. But it’s the stillness that worries her. Clint is capable of intense focus, and she worries that left without an objective, he’ll turn that focus inward, concentrate on things he couldn’t have prevented. She needs to keep him busy for a while.

Natasha moves through a few sun salutations, trying to loosen exhausted muscles. She would love to climb into the huge, inviting bed, but she knows she’ll fall asleep instantly. She really does want to make sure Clint comes back out of the shower. Finally the water turns off, and she hears the shower curtain slide back on its rings, the rustling of cotton. Clint emerges in baggy, too-long flannel pants and a t-shirt. He goes straight to the bed, barely turns back the sheets before collapsing into it.

Natasha turns out the light, climbs in on the other side. She is confident of her welcome, Clint has always appreciated the comfort of a friendly body, but she’s less sure of what she wants from him right now. They’ve been everything to each other at one point or another. They’ve shared beds as friends, as lovers, out of necessity. Sometimes the only respite from days of fighting on edge is a fuck, and sometimes at the end of a long battle you’re just too tired and sore to do anything but sleep next to someone. As she tentatively lays a hand on Clint’s shoulder, he rolls over to throw an arm across her waist and crush his face against her neck, breathing harshly, and stays there. Natasha rubs his back, runs her fingers through his hair. They fall asleep like that.


	3. Laughing with a Mouth of Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Doing body shots off Captain America.

Natasha only sleeps for a few hours. She dreams about people changing their shapes. When she wakes up, the alarm clock on the nightstand says it’s 7:13 PM, and Clint is still curled against her, snoring slightly. She doesn’t move right away; there are things to process, and she can do her scheming just as well without waking up Clint.

The next… 12 to 15 hours will probably be fine. With the Chitauri all creepily unplugged, and Loki secure (according to Thor), there are no foreseeable threats still active. They can hide out in the Tower until tomorrow, but by then the news coverage will have gone from shallow and ubiquitous to limited and thorough. In some ways, thorough is more of a problem. SHIELD will want them to come in to deal with SHIELD things. Those of the Avengers who hadn’t already graced the cover of Time magazine will suddenly be much more recognizable. If she and Clint are going to get out of town, they should do it as soon as possible. Clint will want to watch Loki go. They can stay for that. But then—Canada? The rural Midwest? Staying off the grid would be nice, to make it clear to SHIELD they want to be left alone. West is a good start. They can head west.

In the meantime, Natasha wants: coffee, food, liquor. In that order. Possibly also a sweater or something, as even summer nights in Manhattan get pretty chilly 40 stories up.

She carefully slides out from under Clint, who grunts and starts to stir. He’ll probably fall back to sleep. The closet and dresser are empty—not even a bathrobe, sadly—so she heads out to the kitchen to see if it’s stocked.

On the kitchen table are five plastic shopping bags, each with a name attached. Most of them appear to contain denim and t-shirts; hers has a cocktail dress and heels. Fucking Stark. She has a variety of options for acquiring other clothes, including threatening Stark with physical violence, but then again, maybe it will be nice not to feel like an assassin for a minute. Get dressed up without hiding knives anywhere on her person, act like a woman having drinks with friends. No need to run from monsters or murder anyone with her legs, just for a night. That actually sounds okay.

She’s grinding coffee she found in the freezer when someone comes in behind her. She turns to see Banner, rubbing his hands together, barefoot, in borrowed clothes. It seems he’s often in borrowed clothes. They make him seem so small. 

“Agent Romanov, I—”

“Dr. Banner, please. Call me Natasha when we’re not on the clock.”

He clears his throat. “Ah, Natasha. Thor told me about what happened on the helicarrier. Some more of it, anyway. It—it sounded like I hit you pretty hard. Would you like me to take a look? I mean, your arm—is anything broken?”

“That’s very considerate of you, Dr. Banner, but actually I’m alright. A broken rib or two, maybe, some bruises—nothing I haven’t had before.”

He looks pained. “You can call me Bruce,” he says. “And I just—can I check? I know what the Other Guy can do, and I don’t—I’m a doctor, Natasha. This is something I can do.”

His face is so damn expressive. From across the room, she can read his regret and concern as clearly as if it were printed on his t-shirt. She sighs, and nods her head. “Sure, Bruce. You can save me a trip to SHIELD medical.” Obviously she was not going to report to SHIELD medical for this, but he doesn’t know that. The tense line of his shoulders releases, his hands fall to his sides as he steps forward confidently.

“I’m going to touch you,” he says. “Tell me if anything is particularly painful, I guess.” He runs his hands down her arms, prodding carefully. The bruise is about as painful as it looks, but it’s local. He gestures for her to raise her arms, and when she does he repeats the process along her ribcage. Even as she winces when he gets to the broken ribs, she feels very aware of his closeness, his hands on her waist. His thumbs just below her breasts. He clears his throat, again.

“Well, you were right. Of course. Two broken ribs on your left, they’ll heal in a few weeks. Do you have some decent painkillers?”

She smiles at him. “I’ll be fine. Thanks, Doc.” 

He slowly removes his hands from her waist. “So, I interrupted you making coffee. Please continue.”

Steve wanders in while she’s setting up the extremely advanced coffee maker, heads straight for the fridge. He’s wearing only a pair of basketball shorts, and Natasha tries to be subtle about admiring the view. Human perfection, indeed. “Anyone else want eggs?” He asks, still poking around. “There’s not much else in here.”

Natasha and Banner both make noises of assent, and Clint walks in saying “Oh man yes, please, like half a dozen for me.”

“There’s a loaf of bread in that cupboard,” Natasha says, pointing. “Why don’t I go upstairs and grab another dozen from Stark’s place while you get started. When Thor shows up he’ll probably want a dozen to himself.”

Steve laughs. “Maybe see if you can find a couple cartons, then. It’s like feeding an army, with you lot.”

“Hey,” interjects Clint. “You’re the one with the technologically advanced metabolism, bro.” Steve shrugs, grinning.

Natasha leans her head against the elevator doors on her way up to Stark’s, still feeling fatigued. She appreciated the few moments alone her errand granted her, but when the doors open onto Stark’s penthouse, she sees him standing by what used to be the window, looking out. He turns around as JARVIS announces her entrance.

“Agent Romanov, is there something I can help you with? I thought the super-team wasn’t due back until 9. Or is my military-speak getting rusty?”

“No, Stark, I just came to steal some of your rations. We’re making team breakfast downstairs, if you’d like to join us. Coffee’s already brewing. Did you sleep at all?”

Stark shakes his head, jerkily. “Couldn’t sleep. Anyway I took a nap on the way back from outer space. There’s stuff in the fridge, probably, since Pepper was just here.”

Natasha considers him for a moment before heading to the kitchen. “Have you spoken to Pepper?” She calls over her shoulder.

“Apparently I left her a few seconds of staticky voicemail just as I left atmo,” he yells back. “She returned my call a few hours ago. She’s on her way back to town, be here around midnight.”

“Good,” says Natasha, returning with two dozen eggs under one arm and a gallon of milk in the other hand. “Come down and eat with us. It’s creepy for you to be hanging out alone in your penthouse when there’s team bonding happening one floor down.”

He scoffs at this, but follows her to the elevator. “I suppose I might as well make an appearance,” he says. He dodges toward the bar to grab a decanter of what she expects is extremely expensive scotch. “Wouldn’t want all you superhumans running loose in my building.”

“Only Rogers and Thor are technically superhumans,” Natasha corrects him. “Banner is only superhuman sometimes. I think.”

Clint greets them when the elevator opens with a cup of coffee for Natasha, handing it to her in exchange for the milk and eggs. He raises an eyebrow at Stark, with a glance back at Natasha.

“So the lord of the castle is dining with us commoners?” He asks.

“Mm, yes, accurate metaphor, Barton, but since I don’t deign to cook for myself I thought I’d take advantage of you all.” Stark darts around Steve, who’s frying eggs at the stove, to retrieve a mug and help himself to coffee, adding a generous glug from his decanter, which he lifts to the room. “Irish for your coffee, anyone? No? Rogers?” He adds another pour before setting the bottle down behind him. “Everyone slept well, I trust?”

Banner eyes him speculatively from his seat at the table, his arms crossed. “Did you?” He asks, simply.

“I may not be a superhuman, or Mr. Hyde,” Stark says, “but I don’t actually require afternoon naps.”

Banner just raises his eyebrows and picks up his coffee.

Thor comes in, his blonde hair tangled, wearing sweatpants. “Salutations, comrades. I was drawn by the smell of coffee. Might I—?” Natasha is already pouring him a cup.

“They have coffee on Asgard?” Asks Steve, amazed.

“I am familiar with the drink from my time in New Mexico, with the Lady Jane Foster and Erik Selvig.”

“…Right.” Steve still seems sort of overwhelmed every time they talk about Asgard. Natasha remembers hearing about it from Clint, shortly after the New Mexico incident—even for them, the whole rogue god thing had been a lot to absorb. They’d seen a lot, in their line of work, but gods and aliens were definitely not covered in training at SHIELD.

The sun is going down over the skyline, and Natasha brings her coffee over to the windows to watch for a moment. Gods, aliens, mind control, time-traveling supersoldiers, Tony fucking Stark and the fucking Hulk. It has been a very long day.

Clint joins her, stands with his shoulder just touching hers. “Hey.”

“Hi.”

They stand quietly, while the other men clatter plates and bicker as Steve serves up eggs and toast.

“Hey Spy Kids,” Stark calls eventually. “Come get breakfast before the superheroes eat it all.”

Clint heads over immediately, and Natasha watches him dish up a heaping pile of eggs and three slices of toast. Her eyes follow him to the table, where she discovers Banner watching her. Stark and Steve are arguing good-naturedly about the physics of dropped toast, Thor is shoveling food into his face, and Banner is leaning back in his chair, watching her. She meets his eyes for a moment, expressionless, before crossing to the kitchen to get her own breakfast. She adds some milk, sugar and whiskey to her coffee while she’s at it, assembling a much more reasonably sized plate.

She sits down in the last empty chair at the table, eats quietly. As she’s finishing her coffee, enjoying the whiskey heat settling into her limbs, Stark pushes his chair back and stands. “All right gang. I took the liberty of getting you all some clothes of your own while you were napping. Really, there are just way too many pecs in here, you two should be ashamed of yourselves.” Steve does, actually, blush, while Thor just looks at Stark blankly. Someone had moved the bags out of the way, to a corner of the kitchen, but Stark hands them around and the boys all peek inside. 

When Stark gets to her, she takes it but cocks her head at him. “I want you to understand that my compliance with this in no way indicates approval of your behavior.” 

Banner chuckles. Stark sighs dramatically, . “Yes, yes, whatever you say, ma’am. See you all upstairs for the party in a few?”

“Stark, it’s not exactly a party—” Steve starts, but Stark cuts him off.

“Look, kid, I know you’re literally too wholesome to get drunk, but the rest of us need something to take the edge off after committing alien genocide and, you know, traveling to a different galaxy while carrying a nuke.”

Clint snorts a little. “All right, shots it is! Stark’s not allowed to DJ—” Clint looks around the table, at the alien, the soldier from the 1940s, the reclusive physicist. “Right, tunes are on me. Suit up, boys,” and he strides off to the bedroom, swinging his bag of clothes, looking a little manic to Natasha’s eyes.

“Why am I not allowed to DJ?” Stark asks the room, as the other men stand. Steve starts collecting plates and bringing them to the sink.

“You know why,” Natasha tells him, and follows Clint.

“My taste in music is excellent,” she hears him retort before she closes the door behind her. Clint is laying out jeans, a t-shirt, and a gray hoodie, and she sighs. She’s going to be way overdressed for this party.

In the bathroom, she takes out the dress and hangs it on the back of the door. She sighs. It’s Versace, which strikes her as very Tony Stark, and it’s gorgeous, which surprises her a little. The fact that Stark has good taste kind of annoys her. The cut is surprisingly demure, with a high neck and a hemline she expects to reach her knees, but that’s the only subtle thing about it. It’s white leather, buttery soft, with acres of gold studding detail that will emphasize her assets plenty. The shoes are perfect black and gold Jimmy Choo sandals. What a waste, she thinks. An outfit like this, for happy hour with her coworkers.

Natasha wriggles into the dress, finger combs her hair the best she can, sits on the edge of the tub to do the tiny buckles on the shoes. She stands and surveys herself in the mirror. The bruises on her arms stand out dramatically next to the white dress, and she feels a little pale. A lick of mascara would make her look less like she’s been up for days, but she reminds herself that for once it doesn’t matter. She’s not even working. But she is definitely keeping the clothes.

She steps out of the bathroom and is a little surprised to see Clint waiting for her, looking perfectly comfortable and casual in his normal person street clothes. He starts laughing when he sees her.

“I’m sorry—” he gasps. “You look hot, obviously, I just—Stark really does have iron balls to put you in that getup.”

She rolls her eyes. “Or something,” she says. “Maybe someday I’ll be able to wear it somewhere worthwhile.”

“Hey now. Don’t shit on happy hour.”

She smiles. “You’re right. Let’s go get happy,” and she holds out her arm. Clint takes it, and they walk out to the kitchen. They find Steve there, in khakis and a button down that make him look like somebody’s grandfather (goddammit, Stark), hands in his pockets, shifting his weight awkwardly. He looks up at them and gapes for a moment before collecting himself, clearing his throat. “Ah, Agent Romanov, you look—lovely. Agent Barton.”

Natasha gives him her slyest, most seductive smile. “Oh Steve, please, call me Natasha.” Her voice is smooth and low, and she can feel Clint shaking with repressed laughter as Steve turns bright red.

“C’mon buddy,” he says, when he has himself under control. “Let’s go see if we can’t outsmart those scientists who made you sober.”

“Actually, I don’t think—” Steve starts, as they get into the elevator.

“Don’t worry, Steve,” Natasha interrupts him. “I’m sure Stark’s liquor is plenty worth drinking even if it won’t make you forget.” She’d meant it as a joke, but she regrets it when Steve furrows his brow, looks away.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I’m sure you’re right.”

Fortunately the doors open, then, to AC/DC blasting away. Clint sighs. They step out, and Stark yells from behind the bar, “Hey, the stragglers are here! At last, the party can begin.” He whistles. “Agent Romanov, you are a vision. I do have excellent taste, don’t I.”

Thor and Banner are standing by the bar with him, drinks in hand already. Thor is dressed pretty much like Clint, which is surreal; Bruce is wearing what looks like half of one of Tony’s suits, expensive gray slacks and a yellow button-down, top button undone. Thor booms, “Yes, Lady Romanov, you look lovely,” and Banner just stares, his free hand curled at his mouth. When he looks away, he smiles.

“Settle down, boys,” she says. “Stark, why don’t you make yourself useful and pour me something strong. And something fancy for Steve, since he’ll actually be able to remember this in the morning.”

“Ugh,” says Stark. “How could they do this to you, knowing you’d never be able to get drunk again. Horrible, what people will do to each other in the name of science. So, you a whiskey man? What did they drink in your day, grog?”

Steve smiles, looks at the floor. “Whiskey would be great,” he says.

Natasha reads the room as Stark tends bar. Thor looks deeply uncomfortable, which she was expecting. He doesn’t have much to celebrate, really. Banner seems content here, has an easy rapport with Stark, has little to fear outside of SHIELD’s threatening surveillance. Stark is very clearly compensating for extreme stress—he’s already quite drunk, which suggests he got a head start. His eyes are wide and move quickly around the room, pausing often on the broken window. Steve watches Stark, too. The grief in his eyes seems to have eased a little, since the battle. Literally saving the world on your first mission back is a good morale booster, and Natasha empathizes with the sense of relief he seems to have attached to Stark’s survival. Cap gave the order, but she pulled the trigger, so to speak.

Clint is drinking tequila, which is not a good sign. He’ll keep his spirits up tonight—happy hour is a tradition with them, after a tough mission, and tequila usually means he’s pretending everything is fine. The emotional fallout will return with the hangover. Stark obviously has really nice tequila as well as half a dozen limes and equally fancy sea salt behind the bar, and Natasha's betting Clint will make it five drinks in before he starts requesting body shots.

"Steve! STEVE! Oh my god--literally, Thor, this affects you too," Tony is shouting. "This is important 21st century cultural education--do you know what a body shot is?"

Of course. She didn't account for all the variables. Natasha stealthily removes herself a few paces before someone gets tequila on her new dress, and ends up standing next to Banner. When Stark starts tugging at Steve’s shirt, though, she almost reconsiders. Doing body shots off Captain America would be quite a story.

Banner is watching Tony pour tequila in Steve's clavicle with what he probably thinks is clinical detachment, but Natasha can tell he's trying not to laugh. His lips are twisting slightly and he keeps looking down at his drink, some kind of elaborate whiskey cocktail.

Banner clears his throat. "I didn't want to take Tony's side on this, but I have to compliment the both of you on that dress."

Natasha sighs. "I know, it's possibly his only redeeming quality. The man knows where to spend his money."

He frowns, looking at the drink in his hand, and there’s a pause. "You know how you were afraid of me when we first met?”

“I was not—” Natasha starts to object, but he just raises his eyebrows. “Okay, what.”

“Well, there’s that attitude, and then there’s the one Cap gave me. Like, ‘I trust you despite what they say,’ with an undertone of, ‘you can prove them wrong.’ Tony is the only person I’ve met since… well, since, who’s seemed to accept the Other Guy as part of who I am, and like me—not ‘anyway,’ even, just—like me. All of me. He’s even offered to have me stay here, use his labs.”

Natasha watches him explain all this, considers it for a moment. In the background, there's tequila soaking into Steve's unbuttoned shirt and he's trying to frown while blushing. Thor is complaining that this seems like a terribly ineffective method of consuming beverages. "But it's a very effective method of getting drunk girls to take their tops off," Tony explains, and Steve finally pulls away and starts tugging his shirt back together. Clint is absolutely beside himself.

"Disclaimer: I will deny I ever said this,” she begins. “I have a surprising amount of respect for Tony, his casual misogyny aside. A while back I was posted undercover as Tony’s sort of babysitter, working for him at SI, when he was behaving especially irresponsibly with the Iron Man suits. He called a senate sub-committee a bunch of assclowns and made a joke about pleasuring himself on national television. It was absolutely the worst job I’ve ever had. But I spent a lot of time with him, and I know a couple things about disguising yourself. He does a lot of good, under all that bluster. And on a personal note, despite all his lecherous behavior, he didn't even try to seduce me while I was in his employ, although I assume that was mostly to do with Pepper."

Banner is silent for a moment. "Were you sent in expecting him to?"

Natasha almost doesn’t know what he means. That wasn’t supposed to be the take-away from that story. "Doc," she says, trying to make a joke. "Look at me. If I can't get a man with Stark's reputation to sexually harass me, I'm not doing my job." 

Banner looks away. "Sounds like a shitty job," he says, and Natasha doesn't know what to say to that at all.

The silence gets awkward before she moves away, goes to sit by Thor, who has retreated to a couch. He looks up at her sadly, puts down his drink. “Lady Romanov. I appreciate the opportunity to celebrate your victory in battle, and I am honored to have fought beside you to protect this world, but I must take my leave. Loki is still my brother, and I fear I have lost him entirely. This is—”

Natasha interrupts him. “I know, Thor. It was good of you to come for a drink. And thank you. For everything.”

He reaches out, places his hand on top of hers, touches her so easily it startles her. “Lady Romanov, you are a great warrior. You need not be ashamed to have required assistance on the battlefield.”

She feels her face fall, her lips part. “I don’t—” She takes a deep breath. “It’s been a very long time since a man had to rescue me. It has a different significance here than on Asgard, perhaps.”

“Whatever the significance to you, my lady, know that I see you as an equal in battle, and, I hope, a friend elsewhere.”

Natasha smiles at him, smiles so earnestly it makes her eyes sting. “Thank you, Thor. I think the same of you.”

He nods, somberly, and to her astonishment he lifts her hand to his lips and kisses it. Then he rises, makes his excuses to the others, and leaves. Natasha is left alone. This is why it take more than six people to constitute a party, she thinks. There aren’t enough people here to subtly avoid anyone. 

With a sigh, she stands again and goes back to the bar, where everyone else is still congregated. Clint is playing 90s pop songs on Stark’s StarkPad, making Steve watch the videos. Steve keeps saying things like, “So it’s like a musical?” and “Why are those women trapped in that brightly colored room?”

Stark groans every time Clint puts a new, in his opinion terrible, song on, but he’s too drunk to be unhappy. Natasha can’t quite believe that he was ever lying on the street, silent in a dark suit. According to Steve, he woke up making wisecracks, and she can believe that.

It was the Hulk that caught him, she knows. The Hulk that woke him up. She remembers the moment when she and Loki tumbled onto the roof together, facing off once again, and how aware she’d been of her humanity, her fragility, before the Hulk barreled past her and into Loki like a battering ram. She realizes she’s watching Banner smile, wondering if he and the Hulk are part of the same man, after all.

“Nat!” Clint’s shout interrupts her thoughts, which were getting awfully sentimental. “Nat, you have some catching up to do.” He sloppily pours her a shot, rubs a wedge of lime on his own hand and sprinkles it with salt. He hands her the lime, the shot, and sticks his hand in her face. “Let’s go, lady. Happy hour.”

She smiles fondly at him before she does the whole routine. Licks the salt off his hand, tosses back the tequila, bites down on the lime. She hates tequila shots.

“All right, Romanov! You do that like a pro,” Stark says, waggling his eyebrows. “Okay, do like six more and then we’ll have a real party.”

“I do everything like a pro, Stark,” she says, and pours herself another shot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're curious, [this is the dress](http://cdni.condenast.co.uk/216x324/Shows/SS2012/Milan/R-T-W/Versace/00270big_216x324.jpg) Stark bought Natasha, and [these are the shoes](http://cdn.shoerazzi.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Penelope-Cruz-Jimmy-Choo-heels-July-2012.jpg?4bc0f1), and they are both from Spring 2012 collections. Sadly I have no idea what Versace leather feels like, but a girl can dream.


	4. No Rest for the Wicked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We are all—well, those of us who haven’t had our freedom of metabolistic choice tampered with by the government—blissfully intoxicated at the moment, and I do hope you will join us rather than responsibly abstaining.”

Natasha doesn’t know what time it is, but she’s had at least… five shots of tequila on top of the whiskey she started with when JARVIS says, “Sir, Miss Potts has just entered the elevator. She is on her way up.” Natasha has to look away from everything that shows on Stark’s face.

No one else in the room has met Pepper before. Natasha was around when they first hooked up—watching them feels like a train wreck in reverse. It’s all horrible until Stark somehow says the right thing, but then the way Pepper looks at him when she’s happy is like cool water. The night Vanko blew up Stark’s expo, Natasha had seen them bickering over an accidental video conference and then not again until they got back to the house, grinning and exhausted and falling all over each other. It felt like all the tension of their working relationship had evaporated, like the entire weight of Stark’s grief had been lifted. But all of their baggage is still there, waiting. Tony’s self-destructive tendencies and post-traumatic stress and Pepper’s many years devoted to maintaining his well-being and his company. They’re a train wreck traveling in both directions, Natasha knows. In the short term, their violent collisions end well; in the long term, there may be casualties.

So when the elevator dings and Pepper strides into the room yelling, Natasha is the only one who isn’t surprised.

"Are you fucking kidding me? You left atmosphere carrying a nuclear missile, do you have no self preservation instincts at all?" Pepper’s voice is shaky, the tears audible.

"I never used to, sometimes I relapse." Tony comes around the bar and meets her in the middle of the room, sliding his arms around her waist while avoiding her angry hand gestures in a way that looks practiced, to Natasha.

"Augh, and you're too drunk to even scold, what am I going to _do_ with you?"

“I have some suggestions,” Stark says, leaning into her, and she says, “Oh for the love of god,” but her smile is incandescent, and Natasha can see the tears in her eyes from across the room.

Steve is watching them, trying not to laugh. Clint looks stunned. “This makes sense, now,” Clint says to Natasha. “I didn’t understand how anyone could possibly put up with him, but now I kind of get it.”

“C’mon, Pep, have a drink, I’ll make you one of the girly things I made for Cap,” Stark is saying.

“Hey,” Steve interjects, but his heart isn’t in it. “Ah, ma’am, if I may. I’m Steve Rogers—it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Captain Rogers, honestly, I know who you are—it’s an honor. Thank you for keeping Tony safe.” Pepper doesn’t notice the way Steve goes a little pale at that, because she’s looking around the room as though she’s just noticed she and Stark aren’t alone. “Natalie!” She calls, removing Stark’s arms to come say hello. “Natalie, how are you?” Natasha is a little surprised Pepper is greeting her with such warmth; they had worked well together, but they were never friendly when Natasha was at Stark Industries.

Steve looks at them curiously, while Clint appears to be suppressing giggles. “Hello, Pepper,” she says. “I—you should call me Nat. How are things at SI?”

“Oh, you know. I’m going to need to hire someone just to deal with today’s events. Speaking of which, you are still the best PA I ever had—if you ever want to get out of the spying business, give me a call.”

Natasha smiles, tilts her head. “Thank you, Pepper. And if you ever want to get out of the Stark business, I think I could put in a good word for you with some people.”

“Oh my god,” Stark breaks in. “I mean first of all, do not give her any ideas, you are not allowed to steal my CEO, but seriously the two of you would be absolutely lethal together and Romanov doesn’t need any help in that area. Barton, back me up here, we need to keep these two apart. For the greater good.”

Clint grins at them. “I’m totally ready for the matriarchy, dude. These two were meant to be.” Stark groans, and Pepper turns to Clint with a smile.

“Agent Barton. I’m glad to hear we have your support.”

“Just Barton, ma’am. It’s nice to finally meet the woman who keeps Tony Stark from killing himself on a regular basis. Turns out we needed him around.”

Banner clears his throat. “Miss Potts, I—”

“Oh, Dr. Banner,” she says, just the faintest hint of apprehension in her eyes as she reaches out to shake his hand. “It’s a pleasure, Tony spoke so highly of your work.”

“Ah,” Banner says. “Thank you.”

Stark has been puttering behind the bar during introductions, and returns now bearing some kind of martini, garnished with a perfect twist of lemon peel. “Darling,” he says, handing Pepper the drink. “We are all—well, those of us who haven’t had our freedom of metabolistic choice tampered with by the government—blissfully intoxicated at the moment, and I do hope you will join us rather than responsibly abstaining.”

Pepper smiles at him fondly, tastes her drink. “Mm, lovely. I’ll stay for a bit, Tony, but will you sleep tonight? If I’m here? Please?”

Stark gets a little evasive around the eyes. “Sure, babe,” he says. He kisses her temple, then darts away to steal the music controls back from Clint. She sighs, like she knows exactly how likely that is.

Steve clears his throat. “Stark was invaluable to us today, ma’am, and incredibly brave. I hope you know—we couldn’t have done it without him.”

Pepper gives him a very calculating look. “I understand that, Captain, and I appreciate what you’re trying to say. I’ve known Tony a very long time, I know what he’s like under pressure. And I think you’ll be a good influence on him.”

Stark has been pretending not to listen to their conversation, but at this he shouts, “Hey! I don’t need any influencing, thank you, and if anything it’s the Cap who needs _my_ influence, since he can’t use the usual methods of loosening up. Or—oh my god, gang, we need to get Captain America laid.” Clint cackles, and Steve turns pink.

——

Two rounds later, Steve politely bids the room good night, the fatigue of battle and profound loneliness showing around his eyes. Pepper catches Stark’s wildly gesticulating hands and says, “Tony,” in a voice Natasha remembers, while meeting his gaze with an expression she doesn’t recognize. Stark says, “Yeah, okay,” and Pepper smiles her CEO smile at them all and tells them to make themselves at home, before they disappear into the master suite. Their enabler finally gone, Natasha enlists Banner’s help in getting Clint downstairs. Sober Natasha is perfectly capable of disposing of a body by herself, but drunk Clint is kind of punchy and at this point can barely walk in a straight line without assistance.

They pour Clint into bed, and once his head hits the pillows he immediately quiets, settling in. Banner clears his throat awkwardly, nods and says, “Right, good night then,” and leaves.

Despite the liquor weighing down her limbs, Natasha isn’t interested in sleep yet. Too much therapy offered, too many observations to analyze. She doesn’t want to be thinking about the future of the Avengers Initiative yet, but tonight really has felt like team bonding—to the extent that she is capable of identifying team bonding. She changes back into the silk pajamas, hanging the dress carefully, and wanders back out to the kitchen to look for tea. She finds Banner already there.

“Dr. Banner,” she nods, as she enters, silent on her bare feet. No one needs a shock, tonight, and he flinches a bit despite her warning.

“I didn’t expect to see either of you up,” he says. Natasha knows what he’s implying, but she’s not going to explain it to him tonight.

“I’ve had quite a lot of practice at staying alert under the influence,” she says, instead. “What’s keeping you up?” She takes down two mugs, a box of chamomile that she can only guess was stocked by Pepper.

“I’ve had quite a lot of practice at staying alert and avoiding influences,” he says dryly. “I don’t like to lose control.”

Natasha considers him as the water boils. “You didn’t, today, did you?” She says. She’s not asking. The Hulk had been wildly destructive to the Chitauri, of course, but it stood still and waited for the Captain’s orders more than once.

Banner looks uncomfortable, though, even as Natasha pours him a cup of tea and brings it to him. “I think it would be hubris to claim that I have the Other Guy under control,” he says. “But sometimes I can convince him to behave.”

Natasha sips her tea, doesn’t say anything.

“On the helicarrier, in the fall, I believe my femur was broken. That kind of sudden pain—”

“Dr. Banner, you don’t need to explain yourself to me. I’ve read your file. I understood the risks when I was sent to bring you in.”

Banner bites his lips, rotates his tea cup on the table. “You might understand the risks, Agent Romanov, but I don’t consider you an acceptable loss. Not any of you. No one.”

Natasha puts her mug in the sink. “Well, Doctor, if I didn’t know any better, I’d tell you you’re in the wrong business. Try to get some sleep.”

She tries not to feel his eyes on her as she walks silently back to the bedroom.


	5. Outta Harm's Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t know what Fury has in mind,” she acknowledges. “But I was thinking Vegas.”

Natasha wakes to JARVIS’s voice. “Agent Romanov, a liaison from SHIELD has arrived and is requesting an audience with you. Shall I ask her to wait?”

Natasha takes a deep breath, mentally prepares herself for dealing with Clint’s hangover. “Thank you, JARVIS, I’ll just be a minute. She can wait in the living room.”

“Very good, Agent.”

Natasha wriggles out from under Clint’s arm, and he groans. “Up and at ‘em, cowboy,” she says. “SHIELD’s here already.”

Clint lets out what sounds like a sob.

Reluctantly, Natasha collects her grimy, battered uniform from the day before and brings it into the bathroom to dress. She combs wet fingers through her hair, finds a little bottle of mouthwash in the medicine cabinet and gargles. She stares at herself in the mirror for just a moment before nodding, and heading off to work.

Clint has kicked off the covers, but is still facedown on the bed, so Natasha slaps him on the ass as she goes by. He grunts. “I’ll put coffee on, but if Fury is here I’m not going to stop him coming in after you.” She would try, though, and she thinks Clint knows that.

Agent Melinda May is standing at the window in the living room, her back to Natasha, hands folded behind her. She hears Natasha’s footsteps and turns to greet her. “Agent Romanov.”

“Agent May,” Natasha replies. “How can I help you?” They’ve actually worked together on assignment a few times; Natasha has a great deal of respect for Agent May, professionally and personally, and that makes her worry, a little. SHIELD doesn’t waste their best agents as messengers.

“Fury sent me,” May tells her. “This is not quite official business. I’ve brought personal items from the helicarrier, as well as transport for those of you who might need it. And, off the record, a personal thank you from many of us.”

Natasha allows herself to relax. SHIELD definitely does waste their best agents on ‘off the record.’ “Would you like a cup of coffee, Agent May? Barton will be staggering out here any minute, and I’m afraid he won’t make it if there isn’t a pot ready.”

May’s mouth twitches slightly in what might be a smile. “I can’t stay.” She pulls a couple sets of keys out of her jacket pocket, and comes over to leave them on the counter. “Vehicles have already been stowed in Stark’s garage. Luggage is in the trunk.” She nods, starts to turn away. “And, Agent Romanov. Try to stay out of trouble for a bit.”

Natasha smiles at her. “Now, May, you know that’s not my M.O.”

May actually smiles, then she walks away. Fury’s way of giving his blessing.

—

Natasha’s had JARVIS report on the SHIELD vehicles and the coffee is just about done brewing by the time Clint appears, shuffling his feet, his eyes barely open. Natasha pours him a cup, letting the heating element hiss as the coffee keeps dripping. He takes it and collapses onto a stool at the kitchen island.

“So,” he says. “Fury’s going to let us live.”

Natasha gets her own coffee and sits down next to him before she answers. “Actually, babe, he’s doing more than that.” She tells him about the car. It’s fully outfitted for field use by SHIELD, has company identification printed on it and everything, which is too bad, but those cars are _fun_ to drive. Clint sits up a little, but he looks wary.

“And they’re just giving it to us? Are they really sending us out again already?”

“I don’t know what Fury has in mind,” she acknowledges. “But I was thinking Vegas.”

Clint’s eyes open all the way at last, and he gives her the kind of smile that SOs all over the world have learned to dread.

Thor comes in a few minutes later, in full Asgardian regalia, to drink coffee and brief them on the technology/magic that will allow him to bring Loki and the Tesseract home. Steve comes in halfway through, and talks some of the logistics over with Natasha. They’ll want a fairly secluded outdoor location, with a good amount of space around them. Natasha’s thinking Central Park will have to do, and no one is allowed to go anywhere near the subway. Thor wants Selvig there, to say goodbye and to help handle the Tesseract. They’ll need transport for Loki anyway—though Natasha is reluctant to invite SHIELD’s involvement, May’s visit this morning suggests they’d have been under surveillance anyway. They can borrow a SHIELD van, Selvig can hitch a ride from whatever heavily-guarded hotel SHIELD stashed him in. The scientists and gods will do what they need to do, then they can all go their separate ways.

Natasha contacts some agents who owe her favors to get things moving, and asks JARVIS to wake the others. She gives Banner the rundown when he appears, fully dressed in last night’s clothes, looking surprisingly unrumpled. Borrowed clothes, she thinks. But he had a bag, on the helicarrier—everything he owned in Calcutta fit in one bag, and it’s in the trunk of a SHIELD car in Tony Stark’s garage. Natasha wonders if there’s anything of Clint’s down there. Her own personal items are uniforms and weapons, and now one cocktail dress and one pair of heels.

Stark comes downstairs wearing silk pajama pants, arc reactor glowing proudly from his bare chest. He squints at her, and thrusts a bag into her hands. “Pepper says you can’t wear that uniform any more and she thinks I should apologize for putting you in heels after the day you had,” he recites. “I’m not actually going to apologize, obviously, you and that dress belonged together and it was an important morale boost for the rest of the team, but the state of that uniform is truly depressing, so here.”

She silently raises an eyebrow at him, but takes the bag. It’s jeans, heeled boots, a t-shirt and a leather jacket. God bless Pepper Potts. Natasha leaves the boys to explain the plan to Stark while she goes to change. She’d prefer to burn the old uniform, but they’re short on time so she just stuffs it in the trash can in the bathroom. She knows that Stark Tower has a very thorough waste disposal system for the private residence and company levels, and it warms her heart to picture the grime- and blood-stained leather melting in an incinerator somewhere.

When she returns to the kitchen, Stark has gone back upstairs to dress and talk to Pepper, and Steve is making eggs again. “Agent Romanov?” He says, gesturing. She smiles at him, but helps herself to just a piece of toast. Stark bursts back in while Steve and Thor are shoveling eggs into their faces, says, “Come on, gang, don’t we have some aliens to return to the store? The creepy government van is waiting to be filled with intergalactic war criminal.” Thor’s permanent frown gets a little deeper. Stark makes a great show of tapping his foot impatiently while they return their plates to the kitchen and car keys are collected. He has the Tesseract in a case which, while extremely unsubtle, looks like something that would be holding millions of dollars in unmarked bills or a disassembled handgun, rather than a glowing cube that could power or destroy the planet.

In the garage, Stark hops into an oxblood ragtop—just dark enough not to be too matchy-matchy with the Iron Man suit, Natasha thinks—and peels out. Thor embraces Selvig before disappearing to wherever they’ve stashed Loki. Natasha herds Clint towards their ride, hoping to get out of the confined, underground space before Loki reappears. Banner approaches them sheepishly, and she opens the back door for him. They’re all silent on the drive over, Natasha sneaking glances at Clint at every red light, Clint brooding over a road map. As they park, he finally says, “I want first shift driving.”

“Okay,” Natasha says simply.

The meeting at the park is tense. Natasha watches Steve’s face as Selvig and Banner place the Tesseract in its Asgardian case, thinking about his file, thinking about suicide missions and waking up an impossible distance from everyone you’ve ever loved and Phase II. Clint is a vibrating bowstring next to her the entire time. They all form a circle around the brothers on a quiet bridge, anonymous SHIELD agents maintaining a perimeter. She sees Loki give Clint a look from behind his mask. Clint thinks he looks impassive behind his stupid sunglasses, but the lines of his face look carved out of stone. She leans into him, whispers, “I took a photo to tape to your practice targets,” and is pathetically grateful when Clint’s lips curve, just a little.

Thor’s expression hasn’t changed all day, really, Natasha thinks. Solemn as a god, but with a depth of pain in his eyes that she thinks she could never understand—she doesn’t have a family. He looks around at them all and nods, barely, before locking the thing into place and glowing. Everyone steps back a bit as the blue light flares, and everyone looks up as the two disappear, and then it’s over. Not so much as a scorch mark on the bricks to suggest that anything had happened.

Everyone is cheerful about saying goodbye, the villain gone, the threat removed. Steve and Stark shake hands, actually smiling at each other. There’s a heaviness between herself and Banner as she hands over his bag, trying to smile. When she places the bag in his hands, she can feel him watching her face, and she doesn’t meet his eyes. His mouth is forming the shape of a smile, almost, but his lips are tight. He grins like a kid when he gets into Stark’s convertible. 

Clint waits patiently by the driver’s side door as Natasha watches Stark drive off. They climb in together, and Clint immediately starts twirling the radio dial, looking for something to suit his mood. Natasha touches her lips as she looks out the window, seeing the Hulk’s sad eyes and Banner’s crooked smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to commenter Mary for motivating me to get back on track!
> 
> FYI: The next chapter is going to pick up when Natasha gets back to New York. Unless something changes, I'm planning to write Clint and Natasha's Excellent Adventure as its own thing--this is secretly the beginning of a series. So. THANKS FOR READING, I hope you like sadness.
> 
> But actually, thank you so much for reading!


	6. Sleeping with a Gun Under My Pillow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Maybe I should reconsider this plan. You know, grappling with mostly naked assassins is actually on the list of activities to avoid in deference to one’s blood pressure.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This picks up a month after the last one--So, like, assume Clint and Natasha had some off-screen post-traumatic shenanigans, Bruce has been brooding, et cetera. You can read about that some day if either of those sound like something you're into.

It’s a month since what they’re all referring to as “New York” when Natasha finds her way back to New York. To Stark Tower. It’s still under construction, tarps billowing over open walls, exposed concrete, pallets of building materials left around. JARVIS welcomes her when she parks the car in Stark’s garage, says, “I’ll inform Mr. Stark you’ve arrived” with just a hint of dryness that makes her feel like it somehow knew she’d been planning to sneak up on him.

The surprise ruined, Natasha decides she’ll visit Banner first. Banner’s more pleasant company anyway, she thinks. Banner doesn’t pretend to dislike her. And of course she wants to check on him in a professional capacity, see how the Hulk is faring in midtown Manhattan, that kind of thing. Really, it’s hardly a personal visit at all.

She finds Banner in the lab. It's the first place she looks. When she takes a seat across the bench from him and puts her feet up, he raises an eyebrow over his glasses but doesn't object.

"So," he says eventually. "You get into any trouble without me?"

Natasha is so surprised and delighted by this that she lets out a genuine laugh. "Barton may have picked a few fights, but it was nothing I couldn't handle for him. All the real challenges are here in the big city, it seems." She wonders if he knows they've been out of commission; she wonders if his casual, self-deprecating humor is covering genuine concern. In so many ways, Bruce is practically transparent--his nervous hands, the pacing, his defensive snarl. But some things, like the bone-deep guilt and anger and sorrow she knows he carries, are mostly hidden even from her.

He's smiling at her now. It warms her more than she'd like to admit to see him smile. "I guess you and Barton do that a lot, huh? Take care of things for each other, I mean."

Interesting. Natasha tilts her head and smirks ever so slightly, friendly, not mocking. "Barton and I owe each other a lot," she says. "And he's an excellent partner for a pool hustle." Bruce's laugh is like oxygen.

Stark comes in, caffeinated and covered in motor oil. "Romanov, I am definitely totally delighted you’re here, I feel like my actions haven’t been reported to a menacing government organization in weeks.”

“Stark, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Fury doesn’t need me filing reports to keep his eye on you.”

Stark huffs a little. “You're staying for a couple days, right? Pepper'd kill me if she found out I let you leave before she got back from Malibu. Take a room upstairs, this place is a ghost town."

Pepper. Had they been friends? Natasha thinks so, sort of. That last night—the first night, in other ways—in New York, they’d been friends. It would be nice to see Pepper. "Sure. Your digs are nicer than SHIELD’s."

“Oh please, don’t insult me by even making the comparison.”

\--

Tony has a firing range on one of the basement levels of Stark Tower, which Natasha thinks is a little strange. She’s pretty sure he has more creative practice spaces for the suit. But it’s there, so that night she goes down to waste some ammunition. She’s just emptied a magazine into a paper target when she sees yellow hallway light coming in through the door at the edge of her peripheral vision. Natasha pulls off her earmuffs but leaves them around her neck, doesn’t put down her gun. She can’t think of anyone who would come all the way down here. When a figure enters and she recognizes Banner’s silhouette, she’s shocked. He approaches her slowly, his hands clasped together, smiling just a little.

“Bruce,” she says slowly. “Everything okay?”

Banner chuckles dryly. “It’s not an itchy trigger finger,” he says. “I’ve been thinking I should learn to defend myself.”

“I’m a great advocate of self-defense, Dr. Banner, but do you really think that’s necessary? I mean, you have a rather effective bodyguard.”

His smile turns sad. “Sure, when it’s desperate. But there are bound to be situations when bringing the Other Guy in isn’t a viable option. What if I’m in a crowd?” He pauses, his expression darkens. “Or, I don’t know, a helicarrier?”

Natasha doesn’t flinch, but her face goes blank, and Banner notices. “I’m sorry, I—”

“No,” she says. “You’re right. Do you want hand-to-hand, or weapons training?”

“I’d like both, if it’s possible. Are you willing to teach me?” He’s shy again.

“Well, for shooting you really ought to get Barton,” she tells him. “I will never admit that I said this, but he is the better shot. If he comes around, I’m sure he’d be happy to give you some lessons. We could do some sparring, though. When do you want to start?”

“Ah, well, I’m not doing anything right now, if you’re up for it.”

The man doesn’t do anything halfway. “I do love an enthusiastic student.” She’s already disassembling her gun. “I’ll just have to stop by my apartment for a change. Want to meet me in the gym?” He nods, and shuffles off with his hands in his pockets.

Combat training with the Hulk, Natasha thinks. Coulson would have been proud. Or, possibly, would have asked her if she knew what she was doing. The thing about Banner that keeps her unsure of him isn’t the Hulk, though, but the way he shifts from anxiety, to teasing good humor, to true darkness so swiftly. It’s different from Stark’s tendency to steamroll over a person with self-obsessed chatter before abruptly saying something genuine and kind. Bruce teased her _about the Hulk_ the first night they met. The same man who spilled the story of his attempted suicide to a room full of strangers because he was angry. And she remembers, that same day, that when Loki’s mindfuck had them all on edge, and they all thought Bruce was about to lose it, he hadn’t even started to turn green. He’d picked up Loki’s scepter. The fall triggered a change, but his first instinct had been to grab a weapon. Even then he’d been ready to fight in the form they all think of as being the helpless one. Not unlike Steve pre-serum, from what she read in his files. The man could be truly dangerous with the right training, she thinks, and the idea delights her. Dr. Banner as a field agent, with the Hulk as backup. They could be devastatingly effective.

Natasha smiles to herself about this as she rides the elevator up to her apartment and trades her jeans and leather jacket for workout clothes.

—

Banner clears his throat when she enters the gym, looks at the floor briefly. “Right,” he says. “A change, into something more appropriate for hand to hand combat.”

“Oh please, Banner. Don’t tell me my state of undress is making you uncomfortable.” Natasha knows it is, though. She’s wearing a sports bra and spandex pants that reach her knees—what most women wear to the gym in midtown, really. Most women aren’t Natasha, which isn’t a fact she bothers thinking about most of the time. Her effect on men is at best a convenient asset in her line of work, and at worst, a liability for all the same reasons. On Banner, though, it’s kind of a good look.

“Maybe I should reconsider this plan. You know, grappling with mostly naked assassins is actually on the list of activities to avoid in deference to one’s blood pressure.”

Natasha approaches him, trying not to grin like a predator, subtly herding him towards the sparring mat in the center of the room. “Is it really? That sounds like quite a thorough list.”

“Oh, it is. No one wants to leave anything to chance, you know, when you’re talking about cardiac arrest, and/or a bright green superhuman monster bent on destruction.”

Natasha tilts her head at him, then drops onto a hand and sweeps her legs, catching Banner in the back of the knees and tumbling him to the mat. He groans as she hops back up.

“This was a terrible idea.” He doesn’t move from his sprawl.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Banner! I hear you’re a genius—I’m sure you’ll pick this up in no time.” Natasha offers Banner her hand, and he reluctantly allows her to pull him to his feet.

Natasha takes him through some basic techniques, Self-Defense 101 stuff as she gauges his strength, speed, intuition. He has the background in anatomy and physics, and he picks it all up quickly. To end the lesson, she lets him throw her, and there’s a pause as Banner takes in his arms on either side of her, his body balanced carefully over hers. She smiles. “Full marks, Banner. A plus.”

He ducks his head, retreats to a kneeling position by her feet. He clears his thoat. “Thank you for the lesson. And thank you for not injuring me in the process, that was generous.”

He’s hiding, a little, rubbing his hands together. Visibly unsure. “Would you like to continue while I’m staying here?” Natasha prompts him.

“Ah. Yes, I would, if you—yes.”

“Okay. Maybe not in the middle of the night, next time?”

Banner’s eyebrows shoot up, and he looks at his watch. “Huh.”

Natasha smiles at him and heads for the door. “Good night, Banner. Thanks for the workout.”

“Hah,” Banner says. “Good night.” After a moment he speaks again, hesitantly. “Natasha?”

She pauses by the exit to look back at him. “Yes?”

“You really should call me Bruce.”


	7. My Wrecking Ball

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He kisses her like she's never murdered anyone, like she doesn't manipulate men with her body every day, like he doesn't know if he's allowed. Like she's a person.

So they start sparring in the mornings, before Banner goes to the lab. Natasha calls him Bruce, tries to allow herself to think of him that way. She can’t help thinking it would be better to maintain a professional distance; for Banner, first names are far less intimate than wrestling in an empty gym every morning, but for her, the physical is utilitarian, and a name is weighty, symbolic. (There’s a reason her aliases share initials when she knows it would be safer if they were random.) She needs him to trust her, though, and for him to believe that she trusts him. For the Avengers to work, their trust in each other must be completely transparent—no professional distance allowed. Natasha practices calling him Bruce.

He’s stronger and faster than Natasha expected him to be, honestly. He learns fast. It’s only a couple of weeks before the lessons become actual sparring sessions, and Natasha is kind of itching to see him against a different opponent. Her own style is unusual, and even Bruce fights differently against a pretty girl than he would against a man in body armor. Natasha wants the other Avengers to meet him again, not as the brooding scientist with a dark side no one mentions, but as the careful, effective field agent she can see him working to become. 

Steve would appreciate a level head like Banner’s on the team, if he could see it that way. Natasha thinks Steve believed what he said to Bruce on the helicarrer—Steve probably believes that he can ignore the Hulk, politely never mention it like a civilian not staring at a scar. But he couldn’t, in the end. For all Steve wears his morals on his sleeves, violence is in the man’s bones. The scrawny kid picking fights in Brooklyn alleys who grew up to be a war hero—and Natasha knows as well as anyone that you don’t get to be a war hero without covering your hands in blood. Steve sees the Hulk as a weapon, Natasha thinks, and she isn’t sure he wouldn’t see their training sessions as a game of Russian roulette. Men like Steve think of weapons as tools, to be aimed carefully and used when necessary; not to be played with.

Natasha doesn’t remember why they call it Russian roulette, but it's never occurred to her to be bothered. She doesn't remember a time when she didn't know how to use a gun, either.

—

Stark being himself, Natasha didn’t think he’d noticed her training with Bruce until he appears in her kitchen one afternoon, in a huff.

“Romanov,” he says. “What are you doing with my Hulk.”

“Stark, what are you even accusing me of?” Natasha laughs at him. “The man turns into a wrecking ball when he’s stressed, he wanted some combat training— _so he can manage stressful situations_ ,” she says, enunciating clearly.

He just glares at her. “You’re spending an awful lot of time together.”

Natasha waits for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t. “Do you want to work out a custody agreement? I insist on alternate weekends, but you can have him on Christmas.”

“Hm, yes, very droll, I’ve got my eye on you, Romanov. If you hurt him, I will have JARVIS lock you out of your bedroom while you’re in the shower and I will put the security footage on the internet.”

Natasha raises an eyebrow at him and Stark flinches, but he doesn’t step back. Natasha almost thinks she hears a sigh before JARVIS says, “Agent Romanov, I assure you such a scenario is not possible, given—”

“Et tu, Brutus?” Stark interrupts.

“I’m still unclear why you think you’re being betrayed,” says Natasha as Stark storms out. She follows him to the elevator just to taunt him. “I guess comparing yourself to Caesar isn’t new, though.”

The next morning she brings it up to Bruce while she has him pinned. “Why does Stark think I’m usurping you?”

“I don’t know,” he grunts. “Because you’re Russian, and also ruthless?”

“He seemed very particular about the fact that we’ve been spending time together,” she says, letting Bruce up. “He threatened to post naked photos of me on the internet if I hurt you.”

Bruce’s head snaps around to goggle at her. “What—Why does Tony have nude photos of you?”

“Oh, he doesn’t. And he never will. He mentioned a very specific, ill-conceived plan to abuse JARVIS to obtain security footage, but it did indicate that he hasn’t noticed I disabled all the cameras in my quarters, so the conversation wasn’t a total loss.”

Bruce seems satisfied with this. “I don’t know why he would care, especially. I suppose I’m flattered that he’s being so creepy about it. That would seem to suggest a certain level of affection, right?” His lips are curling just a little, and Natasha is glad she mentioned it.

—

One night, on her way to the gym for a real workout, she hears roaring from the hallway. She instantly puts her back to the wall, breathing hard, wondering how the fuck someone got all the way to the _gym_ without alerting security, why anyone would be attacking the gym, what was Bruce doing in the gym anyway? When she carefully looks through the window she sees the Hulk, alone, just before it changes back into a naked Bruce Banner. She's about to go in and ask him what the fuck is going on when she sees him take a few deep breaths, then Hulk out again, growing and changing color smoothly, all at once, the way he'd done on the street in New York, not in fits and starts like on the helicarrier. She pauses with her hand on the door, watching. The Hulk roars, takes a few lumbering steps, then stops. It tilts its head, pauses, then shrinks again, turning pink. Natasha opens the door and steps inside, drawing Bruce's attention, and she doesn't pretend not to stare.

"Natasha," he says, and he sounds horrified. "It's okay, I've got it under control--"

"You're practicing," she breathes.

Bruce opens his mouth, closes it. Looks at the floor. He seems to have forgotten that he's naked. "I--well, yeah. If the Avengers ever need the Other Guy again, I want to be sure he'll behave. I don't want--Natasha. I'm so sorry for—for the helicarrier."

Natasha looks away briefly. "You've already proven to me that the Hulk can be controlled," she says. "What happened on the helicarrier was an accident, for which Loki was completely responsible." She very deliberately looks Bruce in the eyes. "I don't blame the Hulk for it," she says. "I don't blame you, and I'm not afraid of either of you."

The relief on Bruce's face is so obvious that she can feel her own tension lighten. He steps toward her. "Natasha," he says again, but it sounds like a different word entirely.

"You're not the Hulk, Bruce. I don't see him when I look at you."

He closes the space between them then. She doesn't move, feels bizarrely unsure of herself. She does not bat her eyelashes, does not shift her hips, does none of the things she’s learned to seduce any heterosexual man she's met since she was fifteen. She just looks Bruce in the eyes, tries to memorize the expression on his face, replace that other memory of Bruce’s eyes with this one.

Then he kisses her. He kisses her like she's never murdered anyone, like she doesn't manipulate men with her body every day, like he doesn't know if he's allowed. Like she's a person. 

When she parts her lips, she feels him breathe in sharply, surprised, before he slips his tongue in her mouth. Natasha cautiously lifts her hands to Bruce's shoulders, afraid he might get shy again. His skin is hot, damp with sweat, and when her palms flatten against him he steps into her and grasps the back of her neck, her waist. The kiss deepens until Natasha can feel her heart pounding, can feel Bruce's cock against her stomach. Her hands are moving across his naked back and they are in the gym. Bruce is naked and erect in the gym.

She stops, retreats just enough to look at him, but doesn't let go. He opens his eyes slowly and gives her a crooked smile. "Uh," he says. "I'm not sorry about that. But do you--"

"Bruce," she interrupts, smiling. "We're in the gym."

"Ah. Are you scolding me for my inappropriate behavior, or suggesting a change in venue?"

"Both."

He _grins_ at her, and Natasha grins back at him, and he kisses her again, sort of closed-lipped and awkward because he’s still smiling, and then he stops and says, “Right, yeah, okay, I—oh. I’m naked, huh.”

Natasha has to let go of him then because she’s laughing so hard.

Bruce is laughing, too, as he hurries across the room to retrieve a pair of sweatpants, a t-shirt, and sandals from a neat pile on a weight bench. Dressed, his erection is still obvious, and Natasha briefly considers cutting the building’s power to ensure they make it back to a bedroom unseen. But then Bruce is taking her hand and tugging her towards the elevator, and when the doors close behind them he takes her face gently in his hands to kiss her thoroughly, with promise.

It’s been a long time since Natasha was truly distracted by anything, but when the elevator dings quietly and stops moving, she almost doesn’t realize it’s too soon to be the right floor. She does, though, and curses colorfully in Russian just before the doors open to reveal Tony Stark, stimulant-dazed and grimy, at the entrance to his workshop.

Stark is so strung out on work and what Natasha hopes, distantly, is just dangerous quantities of caffeine, that at first he just waves a hand at them dismissively and mutters to himself as he steps on the elevator. Then Bruce doesn’t quite stifle a laugh, and Stark looks back at them like he’s been hit.

“ _You!_ ” He cries, pointing at Natasha. “I _knew_ it, I am a genius and not even super spies can hide from me! You seduced my physicist!”

Natasha turns to Bruce with a straight face. His hand is still on her waist. “Would you say I seduced you? I’m not sure that’s how it happened.”

He nods, solemnly. “You know, Tony, I don’t mean to brag, but I think I seduced her.”

Natasha nods at Stark. “He’s right. Utterly seduced.”

Stark glares at both of them, lips pressed together.

“Oh,” says Bruce. “Is this what the whole betrayed lover act was about last week?”

Stark sighs. “Bruce, babe, if we were lovers, you would _know_ , and there was no betrayed lover act—”

“Stark, you called your AI ‘Brutus’ when he declined to help you blackmail me to keep me away from Bruce.”

“That wasn’t strictly the same—”

“You moped around my lab for _hours_. Pepper had to override JARVIS to find you to make you go to a board meeting.”

Stark snaps his mouth shut just as they finally reach Natasha’s floor. She tugs on Bruce’s hand.

“So glad we had this talk, Stark, don’t wait up!” She calls over her shoulder, and they hear him muttering to himself about false friends and succubi as the elevator doors close on him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahha sorry.
> 
> The rating went up a little and this is probably NSFW though.


	8. A Steel Frame on My Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "No sex in the gym, what did I say?"

Natasha feels weightless as she tugs Bruce’s hand towards her bedroom. Her feet barely touch the floor. She feels almost like the dancer she once pretended to be, like her body has only ever been her own, like she’s capable of beautiful things with no violence in them.

Bruce hesitates at the threshold, and she thinks, of course—beautiful things always have violence in them.

“Is this okay?” Natasha asks. “Is there—” but she’s not sure how to say what she means. There’s nothing on this in Bruce’s file.

He smiles crookedly at her. “This is definitely okay,” he says, but doesn’t come any closer.

Natasha surveys him carefully. He’s still visibly aroused, but breathing steadily. He looks cautious, not nervous, not dangerous. She steps towards him, places a hand on his neck. His pulse picks up under her fingers.

Bruce reaches up, curls his fingers around her wrist. “Natasha,” he murmurs. “Do you trust me?”

She looks up to meet his eyes. His hair is sweat-damp and curling down over his forehead. He’s not smiling anymore, but his eyes are soft.

“Yes,” she says, quietly. 

He leans down to kiss her collarbone, says, “okay,” against her skin. Natasha slowly lets out a breath, slides her free hand under his shirt, turns her face into his hair.

Then he looks up and grins _wickedly_ at her, says, “Just be gentle with me, Agent Romanov,” and all Natasha’s nervous tension is replaced with heat and urgency and delight.

“Oh, Dr. Banner,” she says in her best bedroom voice. “That was not my intention at all.”

Bruce releases her wrist to grasp her face with both hands and kiss her like he’ll drown if he doesn’t. He backs her up until he has her against a wall, and Natasha breaks the kiss for a moment to pull his shirt off. He’s grinning, still, like he can’t stop, and Natasha can’t remember if she’s ever smiled so much during sex. Bruce leans in again but Natasha gets in his way, peeling off her own tank top and wriggling out of her sports bra. There’s no way to do that smoothly, but Bruce is staring at her very intently, so Natasha doesn’t waste time being self-conscious.

He catches her smirk, though, and visibly regains focus. He picks her up and carries her to the bed, her legs wrapped around his waist, sucking a bruise into his throat, and as soon as her back hits the mattress he drags her pants down. They catch on her sneakers, and Bruce groans in frustration. Natasha sits up and waves him off.

“Dresser, top drawer, condoms, go,” she says, untying her shoes and kicking them to the floor. Bruce steps out of his own shoes as he goes, laughs a little as he discovers that the drawer in question is mostly filled with lace, and turns around holding a strip of foil with a look of gleeful victory on his face, which is quickly replaced by one of slack-jawed, dark-eyed lust.

Natasha rolls onto her knees and politely holds her hand out for the condoms, which Bruce hands over immediately, nearly falling over in his haste to get his pants off, never taking his eyes off her.

She returns his stare as she carefully tears open a wrapper with her teeth and reaches out for him. Bruce joins her on the bed, breathes harshly as she rolls the condom onto him, nudges him onto his back, straddles his waist. She leans over him, whispers, “Do you trust me?” against his ear. With a hand at the nape of her neck, he draws her back to meet his eyes.

“I trust you, Natasha,” he says against her lips, and she kisses him to swallow his moan as she guides him inside her.

Bruce’s eyes get crazy as she rides him, and she can feel herself smiling even as she gets frantic, leans down to brace her arms on the headboard for better leverage. “Oh, fuck,” grunts Bruce, and he reaches a hand between them to stroke her clit. Natasha gasps, kisses him until she needs to lift her head to breathe. “Oh, ‘Tasha, come on,” he moans desperately, and then he flips them over to pound into her. Natasha arches her back, meets his thrusts, hears fragile, high-pitched moans coming from her own mouth. She wraps her legs around him, nearly lifting herself off the bed, and just as Bruce starts swearing again she’s overcome, slams her head back against the mattress with a groan, gasps for air and vaguely hears Bruce say, “oh thank _god_ ,” before he thrusts into her, hard, three more times. He shouts wordlessly as he comes, and it occurs to Natasha, faintly, that it sounds a little like the Hulk’s roar.

He rolls to one side as he collapses, chuckling and out of breath. After panting through a grin, his eyes closed, for a few moments, Bruce says, “right, okay, right,” under his breath, and groans a little as he gets up to get rid of the condom. He stands in the middle of the room, looking around, holding the used condom slightly away from him, before Natasha laughs at him and directs him to the bathroom. 

The hallway light turns on, and she hears water running. Natasha rolls onto her stomach and grinds her hips into the mattress, grinning through the aftershocks. What do civilians do after sex, she wonders, idly. There’s no mission, nowhere to be, no ulterior motive. It’s an almost foreign feeling, to wonder if she should ask Bruce to stay because she wants him to—to be able to wonder if she wants him to.

Natasha hears Bruce’s footsteps in the hall, and she looks up through her hair when he enters. She’s still boneless, facedown, just her head turned toward the door. Bruce audibly releases his breath. “Ah,” he says. “I’ll, um—” he gestures toward his clothes, scattered around the room. “I’ll just—”

“Bruce,” Natasha interrupts. She reluctantly sits up, pulls her knees to her chest, crosses her ankles. “Stark probably has your room staked out. You can stay, if you want.”

The gentle look on his face, the way his eyebrows raise slightly, reminds her of the way he’d looked at her in that shack in Calcutta, the way he’d tried to calm her like a frightened animal when she had a gun trained on him. He goes and puts on his pants before he says anything, standing at the foot of the bed. “I can handle Tony, I think,” is what he says. “Do you want me to stay?”

Natasha looks at him standing there, rubbing his left hand over the knuckles of his right, looking between her and the ground. Like a man in borrowed clothes. She slowly stretches her legs out in front of her, releases her hands into her lap. “I’d like you to stay,” she says, eventually, when she thinks she’s sure. She gets up, then, goes to her closet and pulls out a hoodie that once belonged to Clint and which she knows will just barely cover her ass. She shrugs it on, turns back to Bruce, who has only slightly relaxed.

“Have you eaten? I have pasta and red wine.”

Bruce smiles, finally. “That sounds great,” he says, and follows her into the kitchen.

———————————————————————————————————————

The next morning they’re quietly drinking coffee at the bar in her kitchen, Bruce wearing only those pants, Natasha wearing only that hoodie, when the elevator dings and Stark barges in. Neither of them move.

Stark opens his mouth, then closes it without saying anything and narrows his eyes at them. Natasha raises an eyebrow over her mug.

Stark sighs. “Okay, fine, you two have my blessing, or whatever, _but_ , Romanov, I hope you understand that all my threats are still in effect, and I will be issuing more as I think of them. Also, I am the only one allowed to have sex in the public areas of this building, thank you for your cooperation.” And then he gets back in the elevator and glares at them as the doors close.

Natasha looks at Bruce and grins. The morning after that they’re tangled up in each other on the sparring mat in the gym when Stark’s voice comes over the intercom, shrieking, “ _No sex in the gym,_ what did I say! JARVIS, what did I say?”

———————————————————————————————————————

“Love is for children,” Natasha used to say. She still believes it. She’s not sure what people like Pepper or Jane mean when they talk about love, people who lived their whole lives in a world that looked more or less like a boring TV show before they met Stark and Thor, before their worlds included terrorists and aliens and mass destruction. Natasha thinks that people like that might be capable of a kind of trust that she and Bruce and Clint haven’t known in years, if ever. She doesn’t remember ever trusting anyone. Before.

Natasha still thinks it takes youth and naivete and illusion to love someone. But there are days, when she sees Bruce standing naked in the rubble, grinning at her, when she feels very, very young.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!


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